Posts Tagged ‘Starbucks’

Sitting in a Starbucks in Plano, Texas in 1997, “Winter” (who has legally changed his name from Rafael Lozano) decided to visit every one of the coffee chain’s outlets, everywhere they’d popped up around the world. In 1997, that meant 1,400 stores. Seventeen years and more than $100,000 later, he’s patronized 11,733 Starbucks across six continents– a majority , but by no means all of the 17,000 in operation today. He documents his visits and charts the ones he’s still missing on his web site.

* Albert Camus (or not: while the phrase is attributed to Camus, uncited, in Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice, there’s no documentary evidence… still, it seems an apposite title for this post)

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As we try to remember which size “Venti” is, we might recall that it was on this date in 1865 that John Wesley Hyatt was awarded a patent on the first celluloid billiard ball. hyatt had developed the ball in response to a competition sponsored by billiard ball maker Phelan & Collander, who were offering a $10,000 reward for a suitable substitute for ivory, the growing shortage of which was threatening their business. Hyatt took the prize– and in the process, created and introduced to the world the first industrial plastic.

Every day, the drums bang, the cymbals clang, and a stream of men in traditional Korean outfits carrying swords and wearing helmets march outside Deoksugung Palace — where King Gojong, a noted coffee addict, first brought the brew to prominence in South Korea in the 1890s.

This elaborate ceremony takes place in front of a landmark more familiar to American eyes — the pink and orange neon sign of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

South Korea now boasts more than 900 Dunkin’ Donuts outlets, nearly as many as there are in the chain’s home state, making it the company’s largest international market. Starbucks is 300 stores behind.

Starbucks was the first to open in South Korea, in 1999, and it immediately shook up the marketplace. Koreans had a taste for coffee — during the Korean War in the 1950s, US soldiers brought packets of instant coffee and shared them with Koreans — but there were few Western-style coffeehouses. Teahouses dominated the culture, and they were often dark, smoke-filled, and sometimes involved prostitution.

Starbucks offered a brightly lit experience, some cultural cachet, and expensive coffee. “At Starbucks, Koreans jumped on the bandwagon,” said Daniel Schwekendiek, an economics professor at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul who is writing a book on Korean consumption culture. “It was considered a place to be. It’s a status symbol. Students spend $5 or $6 for lunch. And $5 or $6 for coffee.’’ Dunkin’ had officially opened five years earlier but was more focused on selling doughnuts than promoting its coffee.

Not long after Starbucks emerged, Dunkin’ recalibrated its strategy, launchinga three-year advertising campaign emphasizing “two hands,” one holding a doughnut, the other holding coffee.

By 2009, Dunkin’ had built a coffee roasting plant in South Korea — its first, and only, outside the United States — and boasted that its beans were so fresh that they’d be in your cup within days of roasting…

Even in the annals of a half century of American fast food companies pushing overseas growth, the Dunkin’ presence is notable: There are three times more Dunkin’ Donuts outlets in South Korea than there are McDonald’s.

While the international operation has been growing in recent years, it is still a small slice of the overall business: In 2013, revenues for Dunkin’ Donuts in the United States were $521.2 million, while $18.3 million came from international markets. Nearly 40 percent of all international sales came from South Korea stores…

As we put the caff back in the half-caff, we might recall that it was on this date in 2007 that Iran intensified it’s crack-down on “bad-hajib,” un-Islamic grooming and clothing. Earlier, Iranian police had warned barbers against giving men Western-style haircuts or using make-up of any sort. It was on this date that Iranian television announced that the crackdown had started its next phase, in which mobile police units would patrol Tehran in search of those who did not observe Islamic dress sense. As part of the warning, Tehran’s public prosecutor suggested that women who violate dress rules should be exiled from the capital, and forced to live in remote areas of the country.

As we choose sides, we might spare a well-caffeinated thought for the wise and witty George Carlin; he died on this date in 2008. The Grammy-winning comedian is probably best remembered for his routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” (originated on his third album). When it was first broadcast on New York radio, a complaint led the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ban the broadcast as “indecent,” an order that was upheld by the Supreme Court and remains in effect today. Not coincidentally, Carlin was selected to host the first Saturday Night Live.

Hot or iced, drip, French press, espresso, Chemex or Keurig, each of us downs about 23 gallons of joe a year on average. It’s in our blood. It’s also on our streets, where Starbucks outposts outnumber hospitals and colleges. And even on our resumes: 161,000 people list “coffee” as a skill on LinkedIn. But the truth is, our cup is half empty. We could be drinking a lot more coffee and, in fact, we used to. In 1946, when America’s thirst for coffee peaked, each of us swallowed about 48 gallons a year on average, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture — more than twice current consumption. “We’d drink coffee with breakfast, coffee with lunch, and coffee with dinner,” says John Sicher, publisher of Beverage Digest. “And mostly, we’d drink it at home.”

As we reach for another soft drink, we might recall that it was on this date in 1905 that Paul P. Harris, a Chicago attorney, met with three friends– Gustave E. Loehr (a mining engineer), Silvester Schiele (a coal merchant), and Hiram E. Shorey (a tailor)– to found The Rotary Club, the world’s first service club. It was so named, as the friends intended to rotate the site of their meetings among members’ offices. Now known as Rotary International, the organization has 34,282 local clubs and over 1.2 million members worldwide.